Dad nodded. “Life with just Mom and life with just me will never be the same, and it’s our fault for trying to force that.”
“I don’t know what things are going to be like after this, but I think I’m ready as long as it means we’re in it together.”
Both my parents gripped me in a hug, and I didn’t care how tight they were squeezing or that it was too hot outside or that loving their hugs made me feel like a little kid. I just held on to that moment as tightly as they were holding on to me.
Cheese opened the screen door with his forehead and sat on top of my feet, swatting at the occasional firefly as we watched the streetlights come on and the sun dip down behind the houses. The only noise was the occasional laughter or muffled television from a neighboring house.
After a while, Dad went back to his house, and Mom and I went inside. It wasn’t the perfect night or anything like that, but it was the most okay I’d felt in a long time. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that quiet moments mean just as much as the loud ones, because it’s not always about moving. Sometimes it’s about sitting perfectly and quietly still.
Mrs. Young and I come in second for the three-legged race. We don’t place in any other events, but we don’t lose either, and I’ve got to think that’s some kind of win.
Before the start of the big water fight to end the day, I wait in line for frozen watermelon and orange slices while Kiera and Greg squeeze in behind me.
I stand there for a moment, letting all the possible things I should say run through my head, my nerves eating me up.
But then Kiera interrupts me mid-thought by tapping on my shoulder. “I’m not mad.” She says it so bluntly that she might as well add in aduhat the end. “I know you’re overthinking what you should say to me in that head of yours.”
I turn around and find that Greg jumped back a few spots to talk to Cooper. He waves, and then turns back to listen intently to Cooper discussing the pros and cons of water guns versus water balloons.
“But you could have told me,” she adds.
Relief floods my chest. I nod. “I almost did. That time you spent the night.”
“It was smart. What you said. It really made a difference. At least for me it did. My parents are still at each other’s throats, but who knows when that will end?”
“It did make a difference? Really?”
“Yeah,” she says. “In fact, after you left yesterday, I told everyone that you give just as good advice as Miss Flora Mae. Maybe even better. That shut ’em all up real fast.”
What alternate reality is this? “Wow. Thanks for standing up for me, Kiera.”
“I wasn’t standing up for you. I was just telling the truth.”
We make our way to the front and load up with fruit.
Kiera bites down into an orange and holds it in her teeth to give me a huge orange-peel grin. Orange juice runs down her chin, and she doesn’t care about being pretty or grown-up.
“Very mature,” I tell her. “Very eighth grade of you.”
“I’m still a little mad at you,” she admits. “You could’ve just told me the truth.” She pushes my shoulder playfully, but I can tell she means it and that I really did hurt her by keeping this from her.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t want to mess things up just as we were figuring things out between us again. I guess I figured it wouldn’t do any harm if I didn’t tell you.”
“But it did. It made me wonder if I could even trust you.”
“Then why did you stand up for me?”
“Well, just because you didn’t tell me it was you giving advice doesn’t mean it wasn’t good advice.”
“I want you to feel like you can trust me,” I tell her.I don’t know how to say it out loud, but hearing that she stood up for me so fiercely makes me want to be an even better friend.
“I want that too.” She eats the orange slice and tosses the peel in a trash can. “I think we’re gonna be okay, Sweet Pea. Even when we’re not.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Project BFF
Immediately after school, I go over to Miss Flora Mae’s house. We spend the afternoon on her screened-in porch with fans buzzing at us from all sides. She answers letter after letter while I face down my last, and hardest, assignment as a seventh grader: Project BFF.
